This invention relates generally to media systems and, more particularly, to blackout features in media systems supporting video mosaics.
A programming blackout occurs when a distribution facility, or other facility, does not broadcast programming at the time it was scheduled to be broadcast. For example, a broadcaster may be prohibited from broadcasting a sporting event if the broadcaster's signal reaches any area within a certain radius of the sports venue where the event is being played. During the programming blackout, the distribution facility may deliver replacement media (or no media at all) on the blacked out channel during the blackout period.
Three illustrative types of programming blackouts are bandwidth blackouts, affiliate protection blackouts, and venue protection blackouts. Bandwidth blackouts may occur when a program has larger than typical bandwidth requirements. For example, a sports program may require more bandwidth than a non-sports program due to its fast-action nature. When a sports program is broadcast, bandwidth may be borrowed from another channel in order to satisfy the increased bandwidth requirement of the sports program. Borrowing bandwidth from a channel may prevent the broadcast of a regularly scheduled program in that channel. Thus, a blackout of that regularly scheduled program occurs.
Affiliate protection blackouts may occur when the same program is scheduled to be broadcast on two separate channels, such as a local network affiliate and a national channel. In an attempt to protect the interests of the local network affiliate, the television service provider may black out the commonly scheduled program on the national channel in the locality of the local network affiliate.
Venue protection blackouts may occur, for example, when the provider of a live event wants to protect the venue of the live event by preventing the event from being televised. For example, when a sporting event, or other event, is not sold out, the sports team may prohibit the broadcast of the event in an attempt to increase ticket sales and attendance for the event and for future events. Thus, a programming blackout may occur on the channel scheduled to broadcast the event.
There have been several solutions proposed for supporting programming blackouts. For a description of one such system for providing blackout features in interactive television program guides, see U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/996,346, filed Nov. 28, 2001. Due to the ever-increasing number of channels and services available in today's media guidance systems, user interfaces continue to evolve. For example, remotely-generated video mosaics may present multiple video sources to a user in a single media guidance application page. Such remotely-generated mosaics enable users to access multiple services and/or assets from video-rich menu screens and displays.
Current blackout systems fail to adequately support video mosaic screens because the screens are typically remotely-generated and composited from a number of different video sources. One or more of the video sources may include national feeds that should be blacked out on the user equipment. This may result in video cells in a video mosaic screen presenting video that should in fact be blacked out.
For example, a user may request a remotely-generated sports genre video mosaic page that contains six live sporting events. Each event may be presented in its own video cell or window in a remotely-generated video mosaic page. Two of the six sporting events may correspond to national television feeds that are blacked out on the user equipment due to one or more venue protection blackouts (e.g., the user is located within some geographic distance from the sporting event venue and the event is not sold out) and another sporting event may be blacked out due to an affiliate protection blackout (e.g., the event is also being broadcast on a local network channel). Current blackout systems are not capable of blacking out individual elements within a remotely-generated video mosaic screen; therefore, events are presented in violation of the blackout. This is highly undesirable, as service operators are typically under contract not to broadcast blacked out content, yet the user still desires to have some content presented in place of the blacked out content and to be able to view the remainder of the video mosaic.